5 posts categorized "Cubs sale"

October 09, 2007

Cuban remains a prohibitive long-shot to buy the Cubs, despite a well-crafted media campaign, including the brilliant move of declaring himself a future denizen of the right field bleachers on the Mike North Show.

(Mr. Cuban, I have sat in the right field bleachers, and I knew famous right field bleacher bum Marv Rich. I was friends with Marv Rich. You, sir, are no Marv Rich.)

Anyway, this idea of Cuban buying the Cubs and bringing in Bonds to play right field came to me last night in a dream, shortly after reading an e-mail interview from August between Cuban, writing from the Cayman Islands, and portfolio.com reporter Lloyd Grove:

Grove: On your blog, you seemed to suggest that Barry Bonds’ use of steroids shouldn’t detract from his accomplishment of breaking Hank Aaron’s non-steroid-enhanced home run record. “In 25 years, any controversy associated with Barry’s quest for the record will be long forgotten,” you wrote. What are you saying here? That in order to achieve our goals in this competitive world, we are justified in exploiting any advantage at our disposal, even if it’s against the rules? Where does one draw the line?

Cuban: I’m saying that the media tries to make a big issue out of things most fans couldn’t care less about. Back when Babe Ruth set the mark, there were allegations of every sort to explain why he was able to do things no other player was.

When my kids or grandkids look back on Barry Bonds, they will know him as the home run champ. They won’t invest the energy to try to find out what the context of the record was any more than any of us explore the context of when Ruth broke the record.

In reference to exploiting any means possible, that is an individual’s choice. Each person lives with the decisions they make. The only certainty is that no one really cares about how and why others, whether it’s Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, or you-name-it, make the decisions they make, because they are nothing more or less than entertainers to us.

Just because the media depends on glorifying it for ratings and sales, doesn’t make it anything more than it really is. All you have to do is ask when a scandal had a negative impact on a sport or entertainment business. It certainly hasn’t been during the digital era of ultracompetitive media.

Well, there you have it.

The people’s choice as the new owner of the Cubs believes it was OK for baseball players to engage in a little chemical-enhancement, and that no one should care because they are only “entertainers.”

Let’s hope the dancing billionaire gets his wish and someone figures out a way to convince baseball to let him buy the Cubs. Then he can bring the biggest entertainer in baseball to Chicago and move him to right field for the centennial season.

Cuban can sit every day in his favorite spot in the right field bleachers, with an up-close-and-personal view of Bonds, pretending he’s a mega-rich version of Marv Rich.

September 17, 2007

While rumors about the arrival of prospective owner Mark Cuban circulated around the ballpark on Monday, the Cubs prepared to start the home stretch of the season with a one-game lead in the National League Central.

"I like our chances and our players are ready for the challenge," manager Lou Piniella said. "We've just got to go get it done on the field."

The heat is on the Cubs, who wilted under the spotlight the last time they were involved in a pennant race this time of the year. They went into the final week of 2004 with the lead in the wild card race, before the New York Mets and Cincinnati quickly put them out of it.

Few of the present day Cubs were on that team, but one of the survivors of '04 is Kerry Wood, who proved he's back to his old self on Monday, complaining out loud about the media crush in the clubhouse before the game.

"Are they handing out media passes at the 7-11?" Wood announced, though not within earshot of any media relations department employee who hands out the credentials.

It's really pretty simple. The better a team's chances in the middle of September, the higher the interest in the team. And more interest in the team usually means there will be more media around to cover it. Part of the pennant race pressure is learning to deal with the added scrutiny.

Will the Cubs be able to retain their focus and concentrate on the things that matter?

They've handled it well so far, Wood's quip aside. It's a good clubhouse, with a few characters, and they've been able to deal with the media all year long.

Piniella had no real news on Monday. He's starting Jason Kendall at catcher over the red-hot rookie Geovany Soto, which is sure to cause some heated debate if Kendall doesn't have a good game defensively.

Asked again if he'd consider playing Soto more down the stretch, Piniella paused for a long time before replying: "Let's see what the next few days bring. We're playing teams that score a few more runs, so we've got to score a few runs ourselves. I don't know how to answer that right now at this moment. I wish I had a definite answer for you, but I don't."

August 14, 2007

Five things that the list of probable 2007-08 free agents means for Chicago's two teams:

WHITE SOX

1. The list is deep at the position where the Sox would seem most motivated to add a free agent -- center field. Mike Cameron, who still looks in great shape at 34, is a reasonable fallback if Philadelphia keeps Aaron Rowand and pie-in-the-sky names Torii Hunter and Andruw Jones land elsewhere.

2. Unless Ken Williams pulls off a stunner and adds Alex Rodriguez, the chances of Juan Uribe sticking around are better than you might think. David Eckstein, Omar Vizquel and maybe Marco Scutaro are the only potentially signable players who could become regulars. Eckstein would be worth a run if the Cardinals let him get away but Williams will be in a tough spot because he has to make a decision on Uribe at the start of the offseason.

3. As usual, there will be a lot of relief pitchers available. The Sox need a veteran or two to add to their mix -- Luis Vizcaino, Joe Beimel, Scott Linebrink, Shawn Chacon -- but Jeremy Affeldt is the kind of guy who gets Williams' blood flowing. It's hard to see how Colorado can let him reach the market.

July 16, 2007

A weekly update on some of our favorite players (and managers) who once wore Cubs pinstripes:

Dusty Baker. Minneapolis Star-Tribune gossip columnist C.J. filed an item on Marjorie Johnson, the Minnesota-nice baker who served as a celebrity-reporter at the All-Star Game for the "Tonight Show." Writes C.J.: Johnson had one sweet encounter that wound up on the "Tonight Show" cutting room floor. "Somebody named Dusty Baker," she said with a question mark in her voice. "Everybody seemed to know him, so I asked 'What do you do?' He said he used to be a baseball player, and then he was a manager, and now he works for ESPN. Is that right?" Totally. Great memory. "He was very congenial and very nice. And he had his little boy, Darren, with him. I gave them both cookies."

Sergio Mitre. The perennial prospect who was sent to Florida as the centerpiece of the Juan Pierre deal won his first game in 15 starts at Dolphin Stadium. He's fourth in NL with 2.81 ERA, and has one of the best sinkers in the league. "You know what you're going to get," Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez said. "You're going to get ground balls." In the 23 outs he recorded in Saturday's win over Washington, 17 were grounders and three were strikeouts. Jason Marquis, take note.

June 25, 2007

According to a report on Fortune Magazine's Web site, John Canning Jr., CEO of Madison Dearborn Partners, is Commissioner Bud Selig's choice to be the next owner of the Cubs, and the price tag could exceed $1 billion.

The report said Canning would lead the deal for the Cubs, not Madison Dearborn.

"I have enormous respect for John Canning, both as a person and as a businessman. But it's a process that will be fair and open," Selig told Fortune. "The Cubs are one of our treasures. It's a storied franchise with legions of fans all over. The only thing I would hope for is an owner who is very protective of the franchise and represents the city of Chicago well."

The Tribune reported on June 1 that Tribune Co. hired JPMorgan Chase & Co. as its financial adviser on the Cubs sale, which is not expected to be completed until after the 2007 season.

Canning and Andrew McKenna, chairman of McDonald's Corp. and a former chairman of the Cubs from 1982-'84, head a group of potential investors that would meet Selig's requirement of keeping ownership local while providing a relatively smooth transition from the Tribune era, which began in 1981.

Canning owns 11 percent of the Milwaukee Brewers, Selig's old team, whom the Cubs are trying to catch in the final year of Tribune Co. ownership. He obviously would have to sell his shares of the Brewers to buy the Cubs.

Which team will Canning be rooting for next weekend in the Cubs-Brewers showdown at Wrigley Field?